Williams on F1 driver market: ‘Speak to Alex, speak to Carlos, they want to be here’

“Speak to Alex, speak to Carlos; they want to be part of this journey, and that's the best I can tell you.”

This is how Williams Formula 1 boss James Vowles reacted to the suggestion that his team needs to show drivers Alex Albon and Carlos Sainz it is heading in the right direction.

The aforementioned suggestion is nothing far-fetched, given the outfit has tumbled from fifth in the 2025 constructors’ standings to eighth currently, with the FW48 notoriously overweight as F1 moved to new technical regulations.

Having joined Williams ahead of the 2023 season, Vowles has been striving to improve not just the team’s personnel and facilities but also its processes, and the Briton insists the project is on the right track. 

“First of all, it is really important to me and to my board – so I'm not talking about the drivers – to demonstrate we're not the Williams of old,” he said. “The Williams of old would have [had] a difficult winter and we would have languished back there.

“I want to demonstrate we have the capability to fight back up the field and add performance at a very high rate, and we are doing that at the moment. It's important to me, the support of our board, because what it shows you is all the systems and fundamentals you've put in place are still good in that regard.

“Same with the drivers – the drivers aren't here or interested in being just into Q3, but they are interested in being demonstrated that we have facilities behind us that are able to fix and remedy problems when they come up and I think that's the main element. I think we're on the right pathway for that but we haven't done enough yet.

Carlos Sainz, Williams, James Vowles, Williams

Photo by: Clive Mason / Getty Images

“In terms of silly season, speak to Alex, speak to Carlos; they want to be part of this journey, and that's the best I can tell you. My job in this is to make sure they want to as well.”

Vowles keeps making moves in order to improve the Grove-based squad and recently completed top-level hires from the rival McLaren, Mercedes and Alpine squads, including McLaren’s former chief operating officer Piers Thynne.

“After the struggles we had in the winter, it was quite clear now that we realised we're still not at the level that we should be in, in multiple areas, and I think the team took very quick action into addressing it and hiring some key people,” said former McLaren driver Sainz.

“Between them, Piers is someone that I know pretty well from my time in McLaren, which I think will be a massive help on all the production line and operation side, so happy to see that we were able to react, realise quickly that we were not at the level that we thought or we could potentially think we were, and that there's a plan and an action plan to revert that situation and make ourselves stronger.”

As far as drivers are concerned, Williams also has eight youngsters on its academy, spearheaded by British F4 and GB3 champion Luke Browning, who currently races in Super Formula.

But Vowles admitted to taking a closer look at F2 racer Laurens van Hoepen, who performed his first-ever F1 test last week with Williams, driving older machinery at the Hungaroring.

Laurens van Hoepen, Trident

Photo by: Dom Gibbons / LAT Images via Getty Images

Moments after the Dutchman took pole position in Montreal, Vowles was asked if the outing meant van Hoepen was an option for the academy.

“Very possibly,” Vowles replied. “The great thing with working directly with him is that direct knowledge of where he was in that car. He still has more to do, but there's a reason why we are talking to him.

“We're in a good place in our academy, you'll see that we have top talent from the top to the bottom. Very possibly, let's see how he performs over the remainder of the weekend, but he did a great job today, great job.”

Van Hoepen crashed out of the lead in the feature race and has dropped to sixth in the F2 standings, albeit just three points away from the runner-up spot.